


Need Based

by Brennah_K



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:03:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5062141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of staring back blankly, in Memoriam (s. 4, ep.7), when David Rossi asks Spencer Reid if he was sure he wanted to go down that road, Spencer Reid answers the question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need Based

**Author's Note:**

> Criminal Minds - Episode tag _Memorium_ (4/7). This little fic was spawned from three CM moments: 
> 
> * The first when Reid tells Emily that Gideon had left without saying goodbye only leaving a letter - just like his father.
>   
> 
> * The second, when we later see from Reid's memories that his father left in person (in the scene where Reid's father tells Reid they aren't statistics) _unless that wasn't the last time he saw his father ... as inferred below_.
>   
> 
> * Finally, the third scene, in _Memoriam_ where Rossi asked if Reid was sure he wanted to go down that path and Reid responded with a solemn stare.
>   
>  This fic is about what he might have said if he'd answered. 

"When a person can't answer your question,  
the answer is probably too painful for you to know  
or too hard for them to admit."  
_Anonymous_  
  


_**  
"Reid, I don't need to tell you that this signature was need-based and sexual in nature. The man we're looking for is a pedophile. So, I'll ask you again. Are you sure you want to go down this road?"**_ David Rossi questioned his younger teammate.

He was certain that when Reid really thought about it, the normally shy-to-the-point-of-being-socially-awkward, genius would quickly rethink his head long approach to investigating Riley Jenkins' death with Reid's own father cast as the prime subject. 

Reid stared at him for several minutes before silently dropping his gaze to his hands. 

Deciding that Reid had taken his point to heart, David pulled out his cellphone and started to dial Hotch to tell him that they would be back soon. Before he could make the announcement, though, Reid interrupted with a quiet, harsh croak of "you're forgetting something, Rossi."

"What's that?" David asked, turning back to the younger man with the realization that he hadn't convinced Reid of the implications that following his current suspicions would have.

The look of near-disdain that Reid gave him in return was the last thing he had expected to see, and almost as shocking as the words that followed: "Rossi, do you know the meaning of the word eidetic?" 

"Yeah, kid, you know I do. What's your point?"

"Simply a reminder that I remember, in clear detail, almost every moment of my life that wasn't obscured by injury, drug, or other trauma."

"If that's true," David questioned, wondering about it's implications himself, "Why did you say that you don't know anything about your father?" 

The answer came to David almost as soon as he'd articulated his question, but he couldn't credit it. If what he was thinking...

"It's rather difficult to learn anything about someone whom you are actively trying to stay as far away from as possible. Especially, when you are unable to forget ... unpleasant ... experiences and have to deal with the memories of them that the person's presence evokes. The details that I do know about him, like his favorite author, the music he liked, and his average commission were from studying his office when he wasn't present - trying to figure out why he was the way he was and why he did what he was doing. Ironically, that may have been what set me on the path of becoming a profiler."

... was true... David's mind froze momentarily at the confirmation, refusing even to let a single trace of everything he knew about need-based sexual signatures cross his thoughts as he felt like the wind had been knocked from him with a punch to the gut. David knew, logically, that his hearing wasn't suddenly going, without any prior physical warning, but he still felt as if he couldn't be hearing right because it sounded like Reid was saying that his father had molested him. 

As he tried to reconcile the claim with the observations of Reid he'd made in the time since he'd first returned to the BAU, David felt a thousand questions fighting for primacy. The question that tumbled out, though, was an unspecific, "When?"

"When, Dave?" Reid questioned, his use of David's first name completely offset by the angry and defensive tone he used as he demanded. "When what?"

"When did he first touch me, inappropriately? I was eight months old when he took me into the men's bathroom at the park and acted like he was trying to help me use the restroom."

"When was the first time he used my mouth? I was sixteen months and three days old when he gave me a jaw breaker lollipop and watched me suck on it for forty-nine minutes before he opened his zipper, pulled himself out, and told me to repeat it on him."

"When did he first come to my room? That was the night after my first birthday."

"When was the first incident of anal penetration? That was the same night. He used his finger to stroke my prostate and told me that showing me how good it could feel was another birthday present."

"When did he use more than his finger? He waited until I was two to do that."

"When was the last time he fucked me? Six months after he left mom and I. He would pick me up from school and take me to an apartment and use me for sexual gratification until roughly dinner time then drop me off three blocks from home with enough money for that week's groceries tucked in my back pocket. The last time he did, he kept me there overnight, and I woke up to find he'd left me in the apartment with a letter saying that he was just too busy to spare time with me anymore but that he'd keep the house and Mom's doctors and prescriptions paid up and a small stipend in a debit card account for our daily needs- as long as I kept 'our little secret' ... until I was old enough to get a job myself. "

"When did I know that what he was doing was wrong? From the very first time. He might as well have written that he wanted me to keep 'our little secret' until the statute of limitations ran out. I knew that's what he meant."

"Or maybe you want to know when I decided not to report him? That was when I was ten and realized that no one was going to hire a ten year-old for anything legal and I had no other way to support my mom."

"When... what David?"

The utterly heart-breaking rant dwindled into a dry broken tone that was somehow even more painful to hear than Reid's words.

David stared at him, astonished at the he had ever thought of Reid as somewhat of an innocent when the younger man could so dispassionately rattle off a string of what had to have been the most horrendous moments in a child's young life as if he'd been completely unaffected by them. He did have a 'when' question, but knew it was one Reid couldn't answer.

"When are you going to catch a break, kiddo?"


End file.
